Novice Versatility

This past weekend we went to the Addicted to Agility’s NADAC trial and we completed our Novice Versatility title with our Novice Tunnelers run! I’m so proud of my little Zora baby dog. We had some really nice parts of many runs that day. And we found some things we need to continue to practice.

My favorite run was our Open Chances run. It was just smooth and flowing and we were working together as a team. It was exhilarating and great. We both came off the course smiling. It is, of course, the 1 run we do not have a video of as the camera operator had a glitch.

I was also super happy with our Open Weavers run. Being confident enough in Z’s training to be able to layer portions of the course was great. And her weave performance in the trial setting was much faster than our last trial. Still a good ways to go, but was much improved.

A few of the things we need to continue to train and practice are:

My foot work and obstacle commitment. A number of the bobbles we had in runs were related to my pulling off an obstacle too early or verbally marking Zora’s approach with a “Yes!” then quickly pulling off, which would cause her to then pull off her path.

Cueing turns and changes in course direction earlier. We had a number of wide turns because I cued rear crosses or lead changes way late.

Increasing Zora’s speed and impulsion in Hoopers. In Numbered Hoopers I find she tends to lope a bit. I think because the course is so visually open and it’s just running with direction, she doesn’t see the point in running all out. Which means as we advance, it is harder to make time. She’s like that in other areas of our life too, she’s not a dog who tends to run all out for the sake of running all out. So something more to train.

Continuing to build her speed in the weaves, and build her confidence with speed in the weaves in the trial setting. Her weave performance at home, on grass, outdoors is immensely faster at this point that in the trial setting, on artificial turf, indoors. At home she now confidently speeds through the weaves, in trials you can still see her thinking about the weave execution.